SC/ST members from one State can’t claim quota in another State : SC

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday said that SC/ST status entitling a person to quotas in jobs and admissions in one state will not automatically continue in another when the person migrates, except when he goes to Delhi, as it is the national capital and a microcosm of India.

A five-judge bench, led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the next in line to be Chief Justice of India, said that when a person migrates to another state, he doesn’t automatically get included in that state’s list of SCs/STs.

This, the court said, would be detrimental to the interests of local communities and hence unconstitutional. However, the central list doesn’t discriminate between the reserved categories of one state from that of another. The same principle would apply to Delhi, the court said.

The rule that a person’s SC/ST status will not follow him to another state would not apply to the Union Territory (UT) of Delhi.

It will automatically follow him to Delhi, the bench said. So far as Delhi is concerned, the pan India Reservation Rule will be in force in accordance with the constitutional scheme relating to services under the Union and the States/Union Territories, it said. Four of the judges agreed with the ruling, only Justice R Banumathi differed. She said that a UT cannot be denied its separate unique identity under the Constitution.

The bench was ruling on several appeals and cross appeals. The court observed that the Presidential orders identifying such communities are only vis-à-vis a state and not the entire country. Any changes in these lists can only be made by Parliament, it said.